Stuck Between a Friendship and Something More

"These are personal things but if you can get hold of
them, you have the first key in instilling confidence."

Dear Doc,
I've known this girl for about a year now and I like her a lot. To cut
a long story short, I've lost her twice now because of my lack of
confidence which stops her from seeing me as more than a friend. She
knows I'm interested and we almost had something but I pushed her away
because of my fear of being inexperienced with women and messing up. Now
more than ever I want to put aside my fears and try to be with her but I
get stuck.

I know the way she sees me changes a lot. Sometimes I'm just a friend
and other times I'm more than that.

How can I get her used to seeing me as more than just her friend? Can
you offer any advice on boosting one's self confidence?

Hello!

Let's begin with confidence.

Most people mistakenly believe that confidence is something you own.
It's not. It's something you get for brief periods of time. I like to
say that you never own confidence, but you get to rent it when you need
it.

You can take the most confident person in the world and even they lack
confidence at some time or another. For instance, many of the most
accomplished people can't speak in front of groups - especially if they
know nothing about the subject!

On the flip side, you take people with no solid skills in a particular
area that can entertain a large crowd. These people have learned how to
tap into confidence and turn it on and off.

You can too!

Unfortunately, there's not a single "switch" for everyone. Some people
like to remember times when they felt totally and completely confident
and "project" it into the current situation. Others like to listen to
heavy, motivating music. Others like to see scenes that make them feel
confident, etc. What's your trigger?

You can find out by thinking about times when you DID feel totally and
completely confident. What was the circumstance where that happened? How
to do you transfer that confidence to a particular situation? These are
personal things but if you can get hold of them, you have the first key
in instilling confidence.

The second (and frankly, far, far more important key) is education.
Think about this: if you know exactly what to do, say or how to act in
any particular situation, you instantly feel confident, don't you?

This is the most important skill I teach my students. Many come to me to
learn how to approach women anywhere, any time. They also lack
confidence in doing this, but by learning the techniques, they know what
to do in any situation. In effect, they BUILD confidence through
knowledge.

This situation with your friend is a good example of that. You don't
know how to deal with her and thus, you lack confidence most of the time
you are with her. Learning to read someone's body language and their
communication cues are two skills that help greatly in this area.

I can't tell you how many women I've talked with (and continue to talk
to every single day) that are looking for that "rock". What is a "rock"?
Simple: it's the guy that can be solid when she's falling apart. It's
that guy that can recognize what she needs and not necessarily give it
to her, but be there to boost her up when she needs it.

This is part of a larger formula I call the "Love Formula" where you
learn to instill safety and security. Frankly, very few women can resist
that!

Unfortunately, you've done just the opposite with her. You've denied her
safety and security! You've done that by "confessing your feelings" for
instance. Why is this a bad thing? Simple: what it does is tell her in
plain, clear "womanese" that you can't move things forward and that you
want her to do that for you. You want her to come back and say, "Oh!
Baby! I feel the same way! Please take me!"

Wouldn't it be easier if that actually worked? The problem is that it
doesn't - and never has. Women don't work this way. They are looking for
the guy that can move things forward and NOT make them do your work for
you! That is the type of "confidence" she's looking for.

You have a lot of work ahead of you to fix this huge mistake - if you
even can. You might want to consider that only 5% of friendships turn
into more. That means you have a 95% likelihood of failure! Those are
terrible odds.

More to the point, one of the best ways to change this is to start
dating OTHER WOMEN. Why does this help? Simple: it shows that you were
able to move things forward with them! We call this "social proof".

Interestingly, this may be your key with this girl, but then, if it
doesn't work, who cares? You're now dating one or two or 10 other women
anyway!